This invention relates to power driven tools and more particularly to a power driven tool for cutting nails which join together wooden members. The tool is particularly useful in repairing wooden pallets, but it has broader application such as in removing boards which form crates or boxes and the like.
In general, a wooden pallet of the type commonly used for storage, shipment or moving bulk items includes cross frame members called "stringers" to which are nailed spaced deck boards. The wood is normally a hardwood. The nails may be twist nails for better holding power, and they may be case-hardened.
Because of the rugged conditions in which pallets are used, the deckboards frequently crack or are broken. Pallets made of hardwood are fairly expensive, so it is desirable to repair them if possible, rather than replace the entire unit. Repair, to be economical, requires the ability quickly to remove individual boards which need to be replaced.
In separating the deck boards of pallets which are nailed to the stringers, it is common practice to use a pry bar as a lever to separate the boards. In doing so, the nails normally remain in the stringer; and the deck boards are pulled over the head of the nail. It thus requires considerable effort and strength to separate a deck board from a stringer, then each nail head is pulled through the deck board and there usually are six nails holding a deck board to a stringer. Removal is even more difficult if the nail is bent over the board. Moreover, once the board is removed, the shanks of the nails which project from the stringer where the board was removed, must be hammered into the stringer before another deck board can be fastened to it.
In repairing pallets, it is sometimes dififcult to use a pry bar because of the damage it can do to the stringer as well as to other deck boards, adjacent to the board being replaced. This particuarly the case due to the limited space between boards, which is typically only a few inches. Thus, a good board may be broken as a result of trying to separate a broken board from a stringer.
Although nail cutting tools are available, such tools cannot be used for selectively removing boards from wooden pallets, because of the close spacing between the deck boards which prevents locating cutting blades at the point where the deck board being removed is fastened to a stringer. Further, such tools are not normally designed to cut hardened nails or to cut nails right at the location between the members it joins due to an inability to access that location.